A children’s book for adults. The Earth asks all the birds of the world to go on a quest to save her life, describing the place they must reach in order to bring back a message from the Great Being who lives in the House of the Treasure in a garden beyond the edge of time. Based on a tale by the 12th-century Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar.

For decades, the conventional wisdom of neuroscience held that the hardware of the brain is fixed and immutable — that we are stuck with what we were born with. As Begley shows, however, recent pioneering experiments in neuroplasticity, a new science that investigates whether and how the brain can undergo wholesale change, reveal that the brain is capable not only of altering its structure but also of generating new neurons, even into old age. The brain can reset our happiness meter, allow us to break cycles of depression and OCD, learn compassion, and heal us after trauma.

Quote of the Moment

Civilization may be unraveling in a lot of areas; some of its structures may be collapsing; but it is also in the midst of a tremendous upheaval of creativity -- a flood of innovation and genius and love pouring out of millions upon millions of people -- a Great Awakening that is far louder and stronger and more interesting than the sleepy resignation and corrosive maliciousness and ignominious decline that the media prefers to focus on.